1. Field
The technology here described relates to a method for fabricating a conductive trace structure and a substrate having the conductive trace structure, more particularly to a method for fabricating a conductive trace structure on a non-conductive substrate and a non-conductive substrate having the conductive trace structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional method for forming a conductive trace on an insulator substrate, such as a polymer substrate, is generally conducted by directly adhering a conductive material on a surface of the polymer substrate, or by insert molding a conductive material and a polymer material. However, the disadvantages of the aforesaid method include an increased thickness of a final product and difficulty in further design or modification of the conductive trace.
To solve the aforesaid disadvantages in the conventional method of fabricating the conductive trace on the polymer substrate, U.S. Pat. No. 7,060,421 B2 discloses a method for producing a conductive track structure on a non-conductive support, which comprises the following steps: (a) blending a non-conductive metal oxide having a spinel-based structure with a non-conductive polymer material to obtain a substrate; (b) irradiating areas of the substrate on which a conductive track is to be formed with electromagnetic radiation to break down the non-conductive metal oxide and to release metal nuclei; and (c) metalizing the Irradiated areas by chemical reduction, thereby obtaining the conductive track structure. U.S. Patent Application Publication no. US 2007/0247822 discloses another method for fabricating a conductive structure, which comprises the following steps: (a) dispersing aluminum nitride in a non-conductive polymer material to obtain a substrate; and (b) laser ablating a surface of the substrate to break up bonding of the aluminum nitride to obtain reactive aluminum particles and to form a conductive structure on the laser ablated region of the substrate.
Since the conductive structure or the conductive track is formed on the surface of the substrate, the non-conductive metal oxide or aluminum nitride located at the surface of the substrate will be formed into the conductive track/conductive structure. The non-conductive metal oxide or aluminum nitride that is not located at the surface of the substrate is to be functionless. Since the cost for the metal oxide is relatively high, manufacturing costs would be raised. In addition, in an electroplating process for forming a conductive trace structure, since conductive leads of the conductive trace structure are usually formed at different regions, a plurality of electrodes are thus required to be disposed on the regions where the conductive leads are to be formed or plural times of electroplating process are required. A relatively complex electroplating device or a longer processing time is thus required to obtain the conductive structure/conductive track.
Accordingly, finding a method capable of simplifying the fabrication method of a conductive trace structure on a selected region of a polymer substrate is a subject of endeavor in the industry.